Page 61 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

“It was a long time ago,” she says. “But thank you. Dieter never stopped working on the business. Day and night. He wasn’t much older than Rex when he went.”

Dread flows through me yet again as I consider Rex’s nonstop work habit. He eats well and works out, but even that feels more like punishment than self-care. My gut twists at the idea of him having a heart attack.

“I do worry about his pace,” I confess.

She nods. “It’s good seeing Rex get at least some relaxation in. See you two getting your lounge time.”

She asks me about my business, and I give her my stock answer—it’s good and I love my clients, love working for myself—because I can’t get my mind off Rex. He really is wound up all the time.

Unsurprisingly, my stock answer doesn’t satisfy Gail. She’s interested in how I got the idea for the mobile side of it, and soon I find I’m telling her how I love the idea of doing everything really high-end—simple and high quality for those who are too busy and successful to go anywhere. I tell her how exciting it was to hire my first employee, how it made me feel like a real entrepreneur, and how I even like filling out the paperwork.

She wants to know my rationale for various choices and we get to talking nuts and bolts, which I never do with anybody. Being a mobile stylist with two people under me is a lonely thing, in the sense that I don’t have co-workers—it’s me alone bossing two women.

I end up telling her my crazy new idea I got from working with the personal stylist/shopper Rex sent for me, how I think it would be amazing to combine styling someone’s hair with a kind of personal-stylist-lite experience—something that’s more personal than a box in the mail, but less high-investment than a private stylist. It could be something mobile, like training mobile stylists in fashion, or else go all out with makeover storefronts that employ personal stylists like movie stars have.

Gail is really interested in the storefront aspect. I explain my idea to have runners who would shop for clients while the clients are in the store getting their hair done, and they’d do a fitting session after the blow-dry session, and the runners would return the stuff that doesn’t work. It would combine the best of online and brick-and-mortar shopping—you can try the stuff on without having to go anywhere, and there’s a stylist to guide you, and there isn’t the hassle of returns. She asks me whether I got the idea from restaurant-runner or grocery-delivery services, and I tell that I did. I was thinking, too, that there could be group experiences. Special-occasion parties. Champagne makeover nights.

“I like it,” Gail says.

“You do?”

“A lot,” she says. “It’s niche, it saves time. It’s good. Have you written up a business plan?”

“It’s a new idea,” I say. “I don’t knowiforhow…”

“Well, how about we figure it out.”

“You and me?”

“Yes, you and me,” she says, like it was a ridiculous question.

Before I know it, we’re brainstorming different approaches and different angles. Not only does she see a cool business operation, but she also sees an entire nationwide franchise operation with really specific branding. I can’t believe how big she thinks.

“If you ever work up a business plan and pull these details together, you need to show it to me. I could be up for investing, partnering, if that was a way you’d want to go. I’m not promising anything, but it’s the kind of thing I like getting my teeth into.”

“Oh my god, Gail, I completely was not soliciting your investment!” I say. Because Rex would kill me if he thought I was hitting up Gail.

“I know you weren’t soliciting my investment,” Gail says, “but now I’m telling you I like it, and I’m telling you that I want to take a look. I know Rex could fund it, but it’s not his wheelhouse, and you want to be thinking about somebody who has the vision and the funding and the willingness to get in there and go shoulder to shoulder with you. I don’t invest in much, but I'm hands-on when I do.” She punctuates the sentence with a curt nod.

My heart pounds like crazy…Gail Driscoll wants to work with me?

But then I realize I can never work with Gail. What am I thinking? I’m here under completely false pretenses. I could never build a partnership on a lie, especially not one where we work closely together.

“I’m flattered, but I don’t know if I can,” I say.

“Why? You know how to run a business. You’re excited about the idea. It’s just a matter of implementing it and then scaling up.” She gives me the eagle eye in the salon mirror. “You planning on staying home and baking meatloaf for little Rexes? Is that it?”

“No, not at all. I plan to keep working. It’s just, uh, thank you…” I stammer. I go around to the other side of her, carefully snipping away. “It means a ton that you’re into it.”

“It should mean a ton,” she says. “I hear a lot of ideas. What you got here is a nice little niche-plus service. I like you partnering with these brick-and-mortar stores.”

“Right!” I say. “It would be really cool to partner with mall stores. They put the stuff up front for pickup, or I send the pickers.”

By the time I’ve finished the cut, she’s talking about launching with a lab or popup somewhere like Tribeca. “The worst thing to do is to kill yourself planning. I always say, bring things to the market half baked and let reality be the feedback that perfects it, then you brand and iterate the ever-lovin’ shit out of it.”

She’s hilarious, and I love talking about it even though it can never happen—not with us as partners.

Just then the door to the salon opens, and Marvin walks in, his ever-present sunglasses perched on top of his head. “How’s it going?” he asks.

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